January is the Cervix Month

Things have been quiet over here, so quiet I failed to realize that January is Cervical Health Awareness Month. I was informed by Sonya over at Hormone Soup. She featured The Felt Cervix Project in an informative post about new guidelines regarding PAP smears. For example, I no longer need to have a PAP smear every year. Now this doesn't mean we should skip yearly Well Woman appointments - annual check-ups are still important.

In felt cervix news, I am still accepting donations. If you've made one or a dozen, pop them in the mail. In the meantime, educate yourselves and take care of your cervix!

cervix mail

This cervix was made by Sandra out of Paton's Classic Wool in honor of her Great-Aunt Blanche, who taught her to knit and survived cervical cancer in her 60's.

 

Melissa made one cervix as a present for a friend who works in the OB/GGYN field and sent this one in for the installation.

the cervix vote

Required Reading

New York Times editorial by Nicholas Kristof titled How Romney Would Treat Women. The most salient point:

Just as civil rights wasn’t just a “black issue,” women’s rights and reproductive health shouldn’t be reduced to a “women’s issue.”

"Yes We Plan"

Scary? Yes.

“Do I really think we’re going to go back to the point where women won’t be able to have abortions or birth control is going to be rationed? That’s just silly to even think of,” said Ms. Hogan, who works at a small company and spoke in a follow-up interview. “Some women do still get really riled up by that, but I think it’s just a scare tactic. Really, you think women are that dumb?”

New York Times article October 31, 2012

I don't think it's silly and I don't think it's a tactic.

change

America is a nation of sound bites, superheroes and short memories. The disenchanted and the undecided may feel no real change happened during President's  four years in office. I suggest everyone read The New Yorker's Endorsement of Barrack Obama and also keep in mind that change is seldom instant. The momentous acts of change occurring in my lifetime - the Berlin Wall, the end of apartheid, the disarming of the IRA - all were almost glacial in their pace towards fundamentally altering long held beliefs and history.

Change is slow, but the alternative is a lightning quick path backwards. And we cannot go back. As women, mothers, sisters, and daughters, we cannot allow a party, whose increased conservatism so threatens the autonomy of women's lives and health, to increase their power.

I believe the seeds of hope and change were planted when Barack Obama was elected and since becoming a United States citizen in the spring 2009, I feel extremely privileged that my first vote in a presidential election will be one to reelect him for a second term.